


Control

by Sondersturm (lufthexe)



Category: Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 10:37:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4873579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lufthexe/pseuds/Sondersturm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He decides; if she is to be a weapon, better she is in control. Powerful but wild meant only an inevitable breakdown, a violent implosion that could be just as deadly to all who were close. </p>
<p>And as far away as he had been, he was inexplicably close now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [take you with a steady hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/440051) by [rumbrave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumbrave/pseuds/rumbrave). 



Wanda had surely broken.

The Avengers moved around her, like planets in constant rotation, while she was a fragmented galaxy (the sun was gone, snuffed out, and it was so very _cold_ ). The stars were imploding, and all that was left was jagged rock, trails of paths that once burned bright and now only left scars, dark holes. She was trying to gather the fragments, to hold the dim stars close to her heart, but they slipped through her fingers and flickered away, leaving her alone in the darkness.

And in the dark, nightmares grew.

The others tried to help. She could see how they saw themselves reflected in her broken eyes, and for some, it was too much. Steve Rodgers, America's righteous man, looks at her and thinks of a man with a cold embrace, thinks of drowning and the curse of forgetting, a woman with sharp eyes and wrinkled hands slipping from his grasp like the sands of time. She does not blame him for avoiding her, not when she had seen his fears so thoroughly.

Natasha comes to her room sometimes, she with more secrets than any of them; speaks to her in slow Russian that is almost soothing as she braids her hair. Wanda takes this comfort just as Natasha uses this as a small piece of familiarity she can pass on.

She cannot stand Clint's eyes, he with the haunted gaze that echoed her own guilt. It was hard enough to simply be, much less remain in constant reminder of what came to be. She does not think of the little boy named Pietro living on that farm, too poignant a reminder of what could have been.

She forgets to eat.

It is not a conscious act, not truly. She already ate less than any of them, used to the finest of Sokovia's dumpsters until the experiments. Then they had been provided with meals that were adequately nourishing, nothing more. Better to not let an investment die of malnutrition; not when the experiments killed indiscriminately. It simply became a burden to leave her room and venture into the dining hall with the myriad of shield agents, where she would be expected to act, and dress, and talk like half of her wasn't missing. Like her heart hadn't been ripped out when Pietro's faltered, like she didn't live in the eternal rage that her own heart did not simply stop at the same time.

Vision left her food, sometimes. He did not make a habit of intruding on her, though he could easily know her every thought if he so chose. Wanda still had not quite made up her mind on him, though she could see now he was nothing of Ultron's initial design. She was grateful for his silence, then, when she woke screaming from her dreams of the experiments, of living on the streets, of waking and realizing Pietro was still dead---grateful that he did not share what he should not have been privy to.

Then, there were voices.

She had always been the calmer of the two of them, but without Pietro as a balancing act, it became near impossible to concentrate. Meditation and focus were utterly lost on Wanda, as much as she struggled in her room to simply _be_ , to focus on a candle or a book and lose all other thoughts. No. It was a constant stream of consciousness, an overwhelming wave of power and emotion that had no outlet, none that she could provide. Chaotic energy, Stark might call it, but she called it madness. The practice fields held less in the way of magical obstacles in favor of physical combat, and being roughly trained by Natasha did nothing for the way her fingers itched with ichor, the voices louder and more insistent. There was no one she could manipulate who would volunteer, not when she had nearly incapacitated all of the Avengers, hardened soldiers who still trembled at her fingertips. She would not have done it willingly, anyways. She had nothing save creating shields that had no real application.

She knew what she could do, how she might be able to fly, if given the right concentration. She had tried, at night when most recruits were sleeping and only the few sentries on the roof were around to watch her fumbling attempts. She lasted about enough to get a few wobbly feet off from ground, no more, before her focus would break and she would land hard on her hands and knees, sweat dripping down strands of loose hair. [She had tried the other way, too, stepping off the roof and half hoping the fall would carry her straight to Pietro, but clearly her powers had enough self-preservation to slow her enough for the Falcon to swoop in and catch her.]

She searched for him, even while her head pounded and the lights flashed too brightly even in the dark. But he was not there, not in the remains of Sokovia or in the grave she had built for him, next to the old notched tree they had taken to burying seeds under as children, to see if the squirrels would find them. There was nothing left, not anymore, and it was as if his death had condemned her as well, to a slow, painful recession, until all that was left was a shade of her former self.

And god, they had burned so bright, could have been a supernova greater than any of the others, because they had each other, and that was all they had needed.  
  


* * *

She thinks Vision might have a fondness for her, despite the utter irony of the situation. If Pietro were there (and wasn't that a bitter pill to consider) he would have likely done something silly, like threaten the android with death and dismemberment. He claimed it was just over protectiveness, but she knew better. 

And besides, Vision knew better than any of them why she grieved, why his affections were misplaced. Her heart had burned up; the only man close enough to trace the pattern of her ribs buried underneath that willow tree. She does not think of it, though, because she once worried her lip enough to bleed when she saw Agent Hill pressing Natasha against a wall in an embrace she was entirely confident Natasha could have escaped from, if she had wanted to. She disappeared quickly, flushed and feeling too intrusive, remembering how natural that same position had been for them. The wound did not heal quick, and she thinks too much of the press of his lips as she licks the scabs.

It is weeks, and then it is months of searching for something left of him, to try to piece him together again and make the voices, the yelling stop. But it gets louder and now it is background noise, a constant buzzing that has the room's corners bending and the mirrors giving back distorted reflections. Or perhaps everything is warped. It's hard to tell, when no one notices how the lights flicker green at times, or perhaps they're simply used to it. How conversations will drift and she catches only snippets of words, not truly the whole meaning, not quite. It becomes harder and harder to act like nothing is wrong. 

And somehow, in the darkness, she finds him.  


* * *

Not Pietro; no, clearly that is too much to demand, to expect. She finds a trace, just something similar enough to give her pause. 

And when she presses further, she is surprised to find she is denied. Not simply struggling to focus, no. She cannot press further, as if some wall is erected, and the cracks in the mortar are only big enough to let the smallest bit of light filter through. 

It is enough, though, to give her hope. To give her some sense of purpose. 

She spends hours, days, locked away, tugging at the bricks, scratching her nails into the stone until her fingers are bloody and raw, yet still barely anything visible in the cracks. 

By the time he comes to her, she is half mad, feverish in her delirium, limp hair and ashen skin framing dark eyes that looked enough like her mother's to stop him in his tracks. 

His name is Erik, he says, and she cannot see into his head, not quite. Not the same way as the others; she only catches fragments. But that is all she needs to piece together what he is saying in even, clipped tones. His voice demands attention, but it is his eyes that entrance her. She sees only Pietro, and knows him for who he is. 

She does not explain when she leaves the others, though she thinks Vision might tell them all about the man who disabled all of the defensive machinery with a flick of his wrist. It is not their place to intervene, though. He is a piece to the puzzle she did not know was missing, a link to her beloved Pietro that she will cling to, desperate for any lasting vestige of her brother.

* * *

 

He is not like what she imagined. 

He makes no apologies for what had transpired, and she tells him no more than what he asks. But he takes her to a building just as grand as any of Stark's towers, and gives her to a woman who introduces herself as Raven. Perhaps she is destined to be simply shuttled back and forth, of no real use to anyone, but too dangerous to do away with. Perhaps that is how he sees her, she thinks. A weapon too volatile to leave in the hands of others. 

Either way, Wanda knows she is useless. She can no longer focus enough to levitate across the room; even twisting an old block takes more concentration than it ever did. Not that her powers are weaker. They are just a loose cannon, flickering and shorting out at the last second. Simple levitation might send a brick flying through a window, or transfigure it into something else entirely. It was becoming more and more dangerous for her to practice, and yet without using it, she was an atom bomb, growing more and more unstable by the day. 

He sees, of course. 

At first, he might have been interested in seeing how far she could go before she cracked, and what she would do when she broke. But it becomes clear the even he might have trouble controlling her should she truly break, when she wakes one night screaming and the entire building is shuddering with their secret fears. 

He decides; if she is to be a weapon, better she is in control. Powerful but wild meant only an inevitable breakdown, a violent implosion that could be just as deadly to all who were close. 

And as far away as he had been, he was inexplicably close now.

* * *

 

He is nothing like the Avengers, not that she expected him to be. She didn't know what to expect when she was brought there, but it certainly was not the mental exhaustion, the tireless way he would insist on more, and better, and shape her powers to suit him as she ran herself into the ground trying to keep up with what he demanded. 

She had no desire to impress him, but at the same time, no desire to be useless. She could see it in the lift of his eyebrow, the narrowing of his eyes when she failed what he ordered. She was trying, gods was she trying, but even when she bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood, she simply could not concentrate, not when Pietro's piercing eyes stared at her from across the room and all she could think was how she would rip each atom from Erik's body if it could bring her brother back. 

He looks at her the way the scientists from Hydra did, as if she were a highly explosive gold, rare and dangerous and expensive. Worth her weight, she supposed, not that Erik was making much on that investment. She doubted he kept her around for any sentiment. She caught flashes, sometimes, of her mother, which was to be expected. She had favored her, when they were young. Perhaps it was the same sort of pain he felt when he saw Magda's eyes staring at him. She doubted it, though. He did not have a twin, a second half. He may have loved her mother, but she couldn't see a reason why he would have left her then, if that was the case. Perhaps that was naive, but she could not bring herself to summon affection for a man that had never raised them. 

She asks him one night, asks him how he met her mother, and it is the first time she sees anything beneath his eyes that is not condescension or a thin layer of rage. It only flickers, though, before he tells her that they are quite done for the evening. 

She does not let that deter her, though. Wanda is determined, even if the only thing her probing results in is his irritation; she will needle at him until he tells her something, or cracks his steely reserve for more than a second. 

She forgets, forgets that he is decades older, and while she has fought in Sokovia, in the riots and with the Avengers, he has fought in wars, known the camps, numbers still etched into his skin. His questions are much more bland, but she fights them just the same, unwilling to give up even the smallest amount of information on Pietro to the father that did not even know they were alive until it was too late to save either of them. 

She does not doubt it is already too late for her, either.

* * *

 

She is practicing late at night, weights floating around each other as she tries to keep them levitated, balanced, and swirling in perfect synchrony. Wanda can feel him enter the room more than hear him, but she does not greet him, focusing on trying to perfect the timing. She is nearly there, but not quite; miles better than what she had been, though. She adds another weight to the swirling form, feeling the weight in her bones as the exhaustion creeps in. But he is still watching, and she cannot break now, not when she has nearly perfected it. 

At the touch of his hand against her side, though, she falters, and barely catches the weights before struggling to levitate them, lifting them with red eyes and gritted teeth. 

"You must learn more control, Wanda," he chastises, like she knew he would, and she is quite content with ignoring him until his hand presses harder into her stomach, pulling her back against him. His hands feel like his voice sounds; cold, hard, without mercy. She hisses, and half of the weights are on the ground before she strains to pick them back up. 

Usually, he does not touch her; she heard a story of a girl who could steal powers through her skin, perhaps he was afraid she might do the same with his memories. 

"If you cannot keep the weights lifted when I simply touch you, how would you handle someone attacking you?" He reprimands, his voice rumbling through her chest as she tries to tune him out again. She tries to focus solely on the red, not on his cold hands or the way he watches her every moment with haughty derision, waiting for her to fail. 

"Tell me, does my touch remind you of his?" He whispers, and all she sees is red, violent burning scarlet as everything is thrown towards him, the windows shattering. 

And surely, he would be dead had he not been able to stop metal in its tracks, throwing the hurtling projectiles to the floor as he advanced on her. She cuts him off before he can threaten her. 

"Do not speak on that which you have no authority." Her accent is coming out thicker than usual; she can barely speak the words, it would be much easier to simply place them in his head. And perhaps he might try to mollify her with authoritative platitudes, but Wanda is done. Her eyes bleed over red and her fingers twist, swirling towards him as he deflects the barrage of random equipment strewn over the room, advancing on her until she is close enough to strike him. She catches him in the shoulder and he hisses; her snarl is part grin as she pushes forward, needing more, more, until she slams black into the metal pillar behind her. The newly forged manacles at her hands and feet are nearly as painful as the way her head smacks back against stone, a wet sound that she knows will leave a blood mark and she can taste it in her mouth as well, eyes still red as he strides towards her, clutching the shoulder she hit. She feels a sick sort of satisfaction seeing him in pain, for once, the damnably calm facade finally washed away. His hand shoots out to wrap around her throat, tightening just enough for her to be gasping as he leans forward to threaten. Or perhaps goad her. She doesn't wait to find out, leaning her head back to touch the pillar, and then slamming it forward into him. 

He stumbles back, clearly not expecting a physical attack, and Wanda's manacles loosen. Her head is throbbing, and she can barely see over the red haze and black dots, but manages to pull free just as Erik grabs her, throwing her to the floor and tumbling on top of her. The wind is knocked out of her as he presses his full weight against her, his large palms trapping her hands once again. 

She is furious, and she is bleeding, and all she can think of is how eyes are finally close enough to fully see, are lit up like Pietro's after he had run to Paris and back just to bring her a fresh croissant. She turns away, she cannot stand to look at him, but he forces her chin back to face him, her eyes following. 

"Look at me, Wanda," he commands, and before she can disobey him, he kisses her, hard and bruising. 

It is more shocking than a punch, her eyes shooting open at the cruel press of his lips, biting and burning with a cold heat, like iron cold enough to hurt. 

But he is not stopping, and she cannot bring herself to make him. 

She knows she could easily throw him across the room, send him to a different galaxy if she really wished. Despite her lack of control, she can still make it _hurt_. 

But this wounds just as much, and perhaps punishment is what she needs. She wants the bruises, the fissures and cracks in her system as she breaks apart. She may have been broken before, cracks in the pavement, but now she is exploding. 

She does not kid herself into thinking it is any vestige of affection; need, perhaps, but there is no emotion there. She doesn't need it. Only needs the dig of his palms into her flesh as she searches for a new bruise, a new pain, a new focus to center around. 

She doesn't expect him to try and please her, and perhaps he isn't, but she finds it all the same. In the same bruised thrusts and slicked press, she strangles out flickers of magic [he tells her, control it, but it is as wild as the sea, untamed reservoirs of power swirling in her breast]. Perhaps he doesn't mean it, not truly, for she swears his eyes light up in some sort of unholy reverence when her eyes bleed red, arching back as she cries out her completion, crimson running through her veins and scarlet driving through her spine. He is close, too, so close that she can feel the magnetic pull in her veins, drawing her close by the very fibers of her being until he bites into the cord of her neck, his fist bruising her hip as the blood his teeth tear from her runs down her breasts. Even that pulls to him, tasting like copper and hot wine as he shudders into her, grinding his teeth to keep her name from escaping. But she can hear it all the same; it is practically a roar in his mind. [She can see herself in his eyes, breathless and wild and _beautiful_ , and she feels the rage in her breast falter, if only for a moment.] 

She isn't sure when her focus became the bruises, but all it takes is a thumb against the dark skin at her hip for her eyes to flash scarlet, and for the city to burn.

 


End file.
